Pontoon

Pontoon (pronounced pon-toon)

(1) In military use, a boat, boat-like device or some other floating structure used as one of the supports for a temporary bridge (often styled as “pontoon bridge) placed over a river, canal or similar waterway.

(2) A float for a derrick, landing stage etc.

(3) In nautical use, a float (often inflatable) for raising a sunken or deeply laden vessel in the water; a camel or caisson.

(4) In aviation, a seaplane’s floats.

(5) In some places (1) an alternative name for the card game blackjack (also as 21 or twenty-one, an alteration of the French ving-un (an obsolete variant of vingt-et-un (twenty-one)) and (2) in the game, the combination of an ace with a ten or court card when dealt to a player as his first two cards.

(6) In nautical freight & passenger handling, a lighter or barge used for loading or unloading ships.

(7) In automotive design, a style in which the coachwork features smooth, flowing curves extending from the front to the rear without interruption.

1585–1595: From the Middle French ponton, from the fourteenth century Old French ponton (bridge, drawbridge, boat-bridge; flat-bottomed boat), from the Latin pontōn-, from pontō (flat-bottomed boat, punt), from pōns (bridge); a pontōnem was a “ferryboat”.  The use in some places to describe the card game (an alteration of the French ving-un (an obsolete variant of vingt-et-un (twenty-one) dates from 1916 and entered English when French & British troops played the game on the Western Front during World War I (1914-1918).  In engineering, the pontoon bridge (a roadway supported on pontoons) was described as early as 1778.  Pontoon, pontooning & pontooneer are nouns and pontooned is an adjective & verb; the noun plural is pontoons.

Bugatti T32s at the French Grand Prix, Tours, 1923.

Attracted by gains to be realized in aerodynamic efficiency, in 1923 Bugatti fabricated four T32 race cars to compete in that year’s French Grand Prix using the pontoon principle.  Bodied in aluminum, the stubby little machines were nicknamed “the Tanks” and there’s certainly a resemblance to the lines of the World War I tanks but, designed without the use of a wind-tunnel, the aviation influenced airfoil shape chosen to increase top speed also possessed that other quality need by aircraft: lift.  The combination of speed and lift was of course a recipe for instability and the T32s showed a marked inclination to leave the track.  Despite this discouraging start, the pontoon approach would ultimately prevail but for decades, instances of aerodynamically-induced instability would plague the tracks, the death toll not small.

Small & large: 1926 Hanomag 2/10 PS Coupé (Kommissbrot) (left) & 1933 Volvo Venus Bilo (right).  The larger the pontoon, the more slab-sided the tendency.

In automotive design, term "pontoon" was used to a style in which the coachwork features smooth, flowing curves extending from the front to the rear without interruption.  The use of the word alluded to the nautical term used to describe a floatation device attached to the sides of a boat or ship to provide stability.  The objectives of the early adopters of the motif included (1) aerodynamic efficiency, (2) a reduction in the number of components needed to form a body, (3) enhanced efficiency through the allocation of more usable internal space and (4) a sleek and streamlined appearance.  It took decades of experimentation and there were a number of notable failures in just about every aspect of the pursuit of those objectives but, beginning in the 1920s, literally dozens of recognizably pontoon-like forms entered production, some sold by the thousand but it’s notable the most successful ventures were those which involved smaller (sometimes on the scale which would later be called micro-cars) vehicles.  On those, the styling tended to be less jarring to the aesthetic sensibilities of those who would actually pay for the things; on the larger machines, the most commonly applied epithet was “slab-sided”.

The pontoon would prevail but in one little corner of England, the 1930s lasted until 1968.  Remarkably, when the NSU Ro80 (left) was released in 1967, the Vanden Plas Limousine (right, complete with a divided windscreen made of two flat panes) was on-sale in a showroom in the same street.

Still, as the 1930s unfolded, the trend was certainly gaining strength and had it not been for the blast of war, things might have evolved much as they did although like many of the aspects of science and engineering which benefited from the extraordinary progress realized during those years, the evolution at the very least would probably have taken much longer.  As it happened, in the late 1940s as the first generation of post-war vehicles was released in the US, the pontoon motif was almost universal, only some vestigial traces of the old, separated ways remaining to reassure.  In Europe, some clung longer to the old ways and in the UK, even by the late 1960s there were still traditionalists finding a tiny market still existed for the old ways bit but mostly, during the previous decade the pontoon had taken its place as one of the symbols of mid century modernism.

Bridge on the road to the pontoon: 1948 Mercedes-Benz 170 (left) & 1951 Mercedes-Benz 220 (right).

One range was so definitively pontoonish that it even picked up the nickname “pontoon”.  Daimler-Benz emerged from World War II not so much diminished as almost destroyed and in 1945 the board of directors felt compelled to issue a statement declaring “Daimler-Benz had ceased to exist in 1945” although that proved pessimistic, a modest programme of repair and maintenance soon established and the next year, small scale production resumed of the pre-war 170V although circumstances were challenging and in two years barely 600 left the improvised assembly line.  However, the currency reform and economic stabilization of 1948 transformed things and marked the birth of the post-war Wirtschaftswunder (economic miracle) and the 170 range, so appropriate to the austere times was soon augmented and then replaced by more advanced models but the pre-war styling was carried over substantially unchanged.

The Mercedes-Benz Pontoons: 1953 180 (left), 1956 219 (centre) and 1959 220 SE cabriolet (right).

Lindsay Lohan on pontoon, Sardinia, 2016.

It was however obvious that the approach was antiquated and in 1951 work was begun on a new range of mass-produced four-door sedans which abandoned the old separate chassis for a unibody.  This was the car which came to be called the pontoon and the first version was released in 1953 as the 180, fitted with 1.8 litre (110 cubic inch) four-cylinder engine in both petrol & diesel forms.  Stylistically, it was among the simplest, least adorned interpretations of the pontoon idea and has been compared both to “three boxes” and “on loaf of bread atop another” and among mainstream vehicles, probably only the contemporary British Fords (the Mark Consul, Zephyr & Zodiac (the so called “three graces”)) enjoyed the same austerity of line.  The pontoon though looked undeniably modern compared with its predecessors and it was a success, soon augmented by the longer 220 fitted with the 2.2 litre (134 cubic inch) straight-six with which more than any other the company rebuilt its reputation.  As the Wirtschaftswunder gathered pace, demand emerged for something more exclusive and a 220 coupé and cabriolet were added although, very expensive, production didn’t reach far into four figures.  More popular was the blend of the six cylinder engine with the short body of the 180, the engineering of which was simple enough but finding the appropriate nomenclature must have required some discussion and, given the way thing were then done by Germans, presumably reached board level for approval.  The solution was to call it the 219 which was a unique departure from the factory’s naming conventions and the only time in recent history the base three-digit model designation has ended in other than a 0 (zero).  Model proliferation would follow and the problem would reoccur and in later years another convention was adopted which lead to a confusing alpha-numeric soup (190 E 2.6, 300 E 2.8 etc so under that regime the 219 would have become the 180 2.2) until in the early 1990s the whole system was re-organized.  The pontoon line lasted until 1963 although by then it looked a relic and had been cut to a few lower-cost utilitarian models.  The pontoons were really the last memory of the austere years before the exuberance of the 1960s affected even Daimler-Benz.

OSI Silver Fox.  Race car designers had before tried the twin-pontoon idea without great success but in 1967, attracted by the uniquely achievable aerodynamic advantages offered by what was essentially a “wing with wheels”, OSI built the Silver Fox for the Le Mans 24 Hour endurance race.  Financial difficulties doomed that project and the potential of concept was undermined when the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (the FIA; the International Automobile Federation (and international sports dopiest regulatory body)) banned “movable aerodynamic aids”).

Punt

Punt (pronounced puhnt or poont)

(1) In various football codes, a kick in which the ball is dropped and then kicked before it touches the ground (as opposed to the drop kick or place kick); in some codes used casually of any long, high kick.

(2) In nautical use, a small, shallow boat having a flat bottom and square ends, usually used for short outings on rivers or lakes and propelled by the use of a pole pivoted against the waterway’s bottom.

(3) The monetary unit (100 pence; the Irish pound) of the Republic of Ireland until the adoption of the Euro in 2002.

(4) An ancient Egyptian name of an area in north-east Africa, believed to be in the region of modern-day Somaliland.

(5) In ichthyology, the action of certain fish which “walk” along the seafloor, using their fins as limbs; a fish so “walking” is said to be “a punter, punting”. .

(6) In glassblowing (as both punt & punty), a thin glass or iron rod which temporarily is attached to a larger piece in order better to manipulate the larger piece.

(7) An indentation in the base of a wine bottle.

(8) In the game of faro, a point; to play basset, baccara, faro etc.

(9) To propel a small boat by thrusting against the bottom of a lake, stream, canal or other suitable waterway, especially with a pole.

(10) To convey in or as if in a punt.

(11) To punt a football by means of the kick.

(12) To travel in a punt.

(13) In informal use, to equivocate, or delay (based on the idea of kicking a ball away).

(14) In gambling slang, to gamble place a bet, historically most used in horse racing but use has spread with the proliferation of betting on other sporting events; in certain card games, to lay a stake against the bank; in financial trading (a form of gambling), to make a highly speculative investment, if based on intuition (guesswork) rather than insider trading.

(15) In colloquial use (1) to retreat from one's objective; to abandon an effort one still notionally supports, (2) to make the best choice from a set of non-ideal alternatives or (3) a (usually speculative) guess.

Pre 1000: From the late Old English punt (flat or shallow-bottomed, square-ended, mastless river boat), from the Latin pontō (Gaulish flat-bottomed boat, pontoon (in the sense of “floating bridge”)) an the so-called “British Latin” ponto was re-adopted from the Middle Low German punte (ferry boat) or the Middle Dutch ponte (ferry boat) of the same origin and not attested in Middle English.  The use in Latin to describe the "floating bridges" built ad-hoc by the military for river crossings was from the Latin pontem (nominative pons) (bridge), from the primitive Indo-European root pent- (to tread, to go) but it may also have been influenced by the Old French cognate pont (large, flat boat).  The verb forms describing movement was base on the idea of "to propel as a punt is moved by pushing with a pole against the bed of the body of water” dates from 1816.  The use of the noun punter in US football dates from 1888 (based on the nautical use) and was by the early twentieth century in the UK, Australia & New Zealand applied to gamblers.  This connection in the 1960s was extended to the term “the average punter”, a synonym for “the average person” and was a classist notion based on the idea the typical working class individual gambled (as well as smoked and drank) and in that vein, it became popular police slang to describe s prostitute's clients.  Punter also picked up specialized meanings including (1) in rock-climbing a beginner or unskilled climber. In Scotland one who trades with a gang but is not a gang member and (3) in internet slang, a program used forcibly to disconnect another user from a chat room or other multi-user environment.  Punt is a noun & verb, punter is a noun and punting & punted are verbs; the noun plural is punts.

Ready for a punt: Lindsay & Ali Lohan, Melbourne Cup, Flemington Racecourse, November 2019.

In various football codes, a punt kick is a kick in which the ball is dropped and then kicked before it touches the ground (as opposed to the drop kick or place kick although in some codes it’s used casually of any long, high kick (often as “punted it down the field).  The use dates from 1845 in rugby (now called rugby union) and is though derived from either (1) from the notion of “propelling a boat by shoving” or (2) a variant of the Midlands dialect bunt (to push; butt with the head) which is of unknown origin but may be echoic (compare bunt).  The slang use in US universities and colleges meaning “give up, withdraw from a course or subject to avoid receiving a failing grade) was based on the use of the punt-kick in American football when used as a tactic when the ball can’t be advanced.  The term appears in the rugby codes, American football, Australian Rules football (AFL), Gaelic football and describes kicking a ball dropped from the hands before it hits the ground.  In the rugby codes, the mode of kick is a matter of importance because the alternative “drop kick” involves a player dropping the ball in front of them, allowing its slightly to bounce before taking the kick.  Under the rules of these codes, dropping the ball in front is a “knock on” and subject to a penalty unless done as a prelude to a dropkick.  A player, having inadvertently dropped the ball will sometimes attempt a kick to disguise the error and thus avoid the penalty so in such cases it’s a matter of judgment for the referee whether it was a drop kick or a knock on.  The special form “torpedo punt” was from AFL and referred to a flat, long kick.  A “punt protector” was a team member whose role was to negate the opposition’s use of the punt kick, the “punt returner” a similar (sometimes identical) role.  The “checkside punt” (the banana punt in Australia) describes a kick which makes the ball spin and bend away from the player's body (they can be intentional or an error).  The use in sport also influenced the figurative use in the sense of “to equivocate, or delay” and was based on the kicking a ball away and is related to the idea of “kicking the can down the road”.  It’s sometimes appears in the phrase “punted it into the long grass) (ie “make it disappear or go away”).

In glassblowing, a punt or a punty was a “thin glass (or in certain cases an iron substitute) rod used in manipulating hot glass”, temporarily attached to a larger piece in order better to handle the larger piece.  Dating from the 1660s, it was from the French pontil, a diminutive form from the Latin punctum (a point), from a nasalized form of the primitive Indo-European root peuk- (to prick).  The use to describe various forms of betting dates seems first to have been used in the early eighteenth century and was from the French ponter (to punt), from ponte (bet laid against the banker; point in faro), from the Spanish punto (point), from the Latin punctum.

Depiction of a mounted punt gun.

The punt gun was a large scale shotgun used in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in the large-scale, commercial harvesting of water birds.  Too large to (safely or accurately) be fired if held by an individual, the weapons were solidly mounted on the punts (although other vessels were also used) hunters used to achieve close proximity to their targets.  The earliest versions were literally up-scaled shotguns including the obviously superfluous shoulder-stock and were supplied without any mounting hardware, owners fabricating their own or adapting other devices but specialized designs quickly emerged.  These were sold with the mounting hardware fixed to the gun and were supplied with a kit which included a platform for the boat, most offering some adjustments to suit different dimensions.

Illustrative photograph of punt gun.  Some 12 feet (3.7 m) in length, they weren't actually used like this.

Punt guns were usually custom-designed and varied widely, but could have bore diameters exceeding 2 inches (51 mm) and the load could be as much as 1 lb (.45 kg), a single discharge able to kill some four dozen birds on the water’s surface.  Because of the power of the weapon, they were solidly mounted so the aiming was achieved by aligning the bow of the punt with the intended line of fire and such was the force exerted that in still water a punt would move backwards by several inches with every discharge.  Punts equipped with a punt gun can thus be thought of as small-scale monitors, the class of warship which carried a single, large bore canon although on monitors, the gun was in a turret and could thus be aimed independently of the direction the of the hull.  To maximize the slaughter, hunters would sometimes assemble punts in a flotilla of up to a dozen punts, their formation arranged to provide a wild field of fire and one optimized to limit the wastage (ie there being no need to kill a bird more than once).  One barrage could thus kill hundreds.

Take aim and fire.

Punt guns were usually muzzle-loaded and double and even triple barrelled versions were built and they allowed a method of hunting which was so shockingly efficient that in the US, by the mid nineteenth century, waterfowl stocks had been depleted to such an extent that almost all state governments their use.  Punts guns are prized by collectors and at exhibitions a firing is a popular part of the show and in the UK, they are occasionally still used by the military for ceremonial purposes although the loads are now optimized for volume rather than lethality.

Heckflosse

Heckflosse (pronounced hek-flos or hek-floss-ah (German))

A nickname for the Mercedes-Benz W111 & W112 sedans produced between 1959-1968 (1961-1971 for the coupés and cabriolets with the pruned fins) and translated in English as fintail ("finnie" the affectionate diminutive).

1959: A compound word in modern German, Heck (rear; back) + Flosse (fin).  As a surname, Heck (most common in southern Germany and the Rhineland) came from the Middle High German hecke or hegge (hedge), the origin probably as a topographic name for someone who lived near a hedge.  The link with hedges as a means of dividing properties led in the Middle Low German to heck meaning “wooden fencing” under the influence of the Old Saxon hekki, from the Proto-West Germanic hakkju.  In nautical slang heck came to refer to the “back of a ship” because the position of the helmsman in the stern was enclosed by such a fence and from here it evolved in modern German generally to refer to "back or rear".  Flosse is obscure but was probably related to the Middle English and Old English finn, the Dutch vin, the Low German finne and the Swedish fena.  Because all German nouns are capitalized, Heckflosse is correct but in English, where it's treated as a nickname, heckflosse is common.  Heckflosse is a noun; the noun plural is Heckflossen (although it has in English texts appeared as Heckflosses). 

The (low) rise and (gradual) fall of the Mercedes-Benz tail-fin

Lindsay Lohan examining the damage to a 2009 (fifth generation) Maserati Quattroporte leased by her father, the impact suffered in a minor traffic accident while her assistant was at the wheel, Los Angeles, 2009.  More than many, Lindsay Lohan probably understands the value of Peilstege.

Chrysler in 1957 really did claim their tail-fins were not mere decorations but "stabilizers" designed to move the centre of pressure rearward.  Although designed during Detroit’s tail-fin craze during the mid-late 1950s, Mercedes-Benz always claimed the Heckflosse (tail-fins), introduced in 1959, weren’t mere stylistic flourishes but rather Peilstege (parking aids or sight-lines (literally "bearing bars")), the construct being peil-, from peilen (take a bearing; find the direction) + Steg (bar) which marked the extent of the bodywork, this to assist while reversing.  It's never been clear if this interpretation existed during the design process or was applied retrospectively in response to criticism after the debut but by 1960, even in the US where the things has assumed absurd proportions, the fin-fad was fast fading.  As a cultural artefact, the distinctiveness of the Heckflosse made them a staple for film-makers crafting the verisimilitude of the 1960s High Cold War, just as the big 600s (W100, 1963-1981) from the same era are used still when wealth or evil (not always synonymous) needs to be conveyed.

1963 Mercedes-Benz 300 SE Lang (Long) (W112).

Although on a longer wheelbase than the standard 300 SE, the model designation remained the same, the SEL nomenclature not appearing until the subsequent (W109) 300 SEL (1965).  The additional framing around the badge appeared only on some early-build models and was a unique embellishment although the 300 SE, by German standards "dripped with chrome".  The chrome trim attached to the tail-fins on the 300 SE and the most expensive of the W111 range (220 S & 220 SE) wasn't fitted to the 220 or the cheaper W110 models and in a quirk of production-line economics, it transpired it was more expensive (ie labor intensive) not to fit the trim because of the additional finishing required.  The alpha-numeric soup of model designations which proliferated from the late 1960s started as something almost logical (ie a 300 used a 3.0 litre engine, a 220 a 2.2 etc) but as new product lines emerged, anomalies increased until, in the early 1990s, it was re-organized although the new system would generate its own inconsistencies and eventually the number often had only a vague relationship with engine displacement.

Heckflosse assembly line, Stuttgart, Germany, 1962.

The Heckflosse was one of the first cars to include in its design the concept of the “safety cell”, a passenger compartment designed to protect the occupants in the case of impacts or roll-overs, the structures to the front and rear (ie the engine bay and luggage compartment) essentially “sacrificial”.  This idea was the ancestor of the modern “crumple zone” in which the front and rear compartments were designed to deform upon impact rather than retaining structural integrity, the object being to absorb and dissipate the energy generated in a crash, preventing it reaching the passengers.  The concept was not new, having for generations been a part of naval architecture, warships using what designers dubbed the “armored citadel”: a kind of “box” containing the vital machinery and magazine (ammunition), the structure created by the armoured deck, waterline belt, and the transverse bulkheads.  While this design didn’t make warships “unsinkable”, it did make them harder to sink and there have been ships which have had their whole bow & stern blown off yet have remained afloat, able to be towed back to port.

1961 GAZ-13 Chaika (Seagull) (1959-1981, from the Soviet Union, left), Sunbeam Alpine (1959-1968, from the United Kingdom, centre) and 1961 Chrysler Imperial Crown Windsor (from the US, right).  There's long been much comment about the Heckflosse's fins (only the factory called them Peilstege) being a unexpected concession to a styling fad but they do need to be compared with what was happening not only on both sides of the Atlantic but in Moscow too.

1957 Ford Thunderbird.  Fin-wise, the closest comparison to the Heckflosse was probably the 1957 Ford Thunderbird which, compared with what Chrysler and General Motors (GM) were doing at the time, was quite restrained.  Genuinely, the fins on the first generation Thunderbird (1955-1957) were functional as Peilstege.

On 1 October 1966, Heckflosses were part of the small motorcade in which, having served the twenty year sentences they were lucky to receive from the International Military Tribunal (IMT) at the first Nuremberg Trial (1945-1946), war criminals Albert Speer (1905–1981; Nazi court architect 1934-1942; Nazi minister of armaments and war production 1942-1945) and Baldur von Schirach (1907-1974; head of the Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth) 1931-1940 & Gauleiter (district party leader) and Reichsstatthalter (Governor) of Vienna 1940-1945) were driven from Spandau prison in Berlin.  The next day he boarded a Pan-Am Boeing 727 for a flight to Hanover, his first time on a jet aircraft because in 1945 permission had been denied (ostensibly on security grounds) for him to go on a test flight in one of the two-seater Messerschmitt Me-262s built for training.  Like many aspects of his life after release, the THF-HAJ flight had been planned while in Spandau, Speer particularly taken with the 727 because he'd so often seen it during its final descent while tending the prison grounds which he'd transformed into a landscaped park.

1971 Mercedes-Benz 280 SE 3.5 Coupé (1969-1971).

On the sedans, the uncharacteristic exuberances were left undisturbed until production ended in 1968 although after 1965, the range was restricted to a line of lower cost, utilitarian models.  The coupé and cabriolet were introduced in 1961 and lasted a decade; truncating the Heckflosse, they achieved an elegance of line Mercedes-Benz has never since matched but then, few have.

1969 Mercedes-Benz 300 SEL 6.3 (W109, 1968-1972).

By 1965, on the W108 and W109 (1965-1972 and which replaced the more expensive W111 models & all the W112 sedans), the fins, though barely discernible, still existed, the factory noting the contribution to structural rigidity, adding strength without the increase in weight the use of other techniques would have imposed.

1978 Mercedes-Benz 450 SLC 5.0 (C107, 1977-1981).

Advances in metallurgy and engineering meant achieving the required strength became possible even without additional curvature in the metal and in 1971 the R107 (roadster 1971-1989) and C107 (coupé 1971-1981) debuted with the rear surface an uninterrupted flat plane.

1978 Mercedes-Benz 450 SEL 6.9 (V116, 1975-1980).

Despite that, a year later, the W116 sedans (1972-1980) were released with the most vestigial of fins.  The retention of styling elements between generations is not unusual, the second generation Range Rover reprising the earlier model’s distinctive hood creases, even though no longer a structural necessity.  Because there was uncertainty around whether US regulators would outlaw convertibles, no coupé or cabriolet version of the W116 was developed which is why a LWB (long wheelbase) coupé version of the R107 SL was released (as the C107 SLC) and the R107 lasted an impressive 18 years, not replaced until 1989.

1954 Chevrolet Corvette.

Almost apologetically, much has always been made of Mercedes-Benz in the late 1950s not being tempted to follow the lead of GM and Chrysler (Ford never really got involved) in making the W111's tailfins (whether they were really there to help when parking or were merely thought fashionable) truly macropterous but that doesn't mean Detroit may have influenced things because they also did some small "Heckflossesque" fins.  One intriguing element on the original Chevrolet Corvette was the use of protrusions to house the taillights.  When in 1953 the Corvette was released, the fins with which US cars of the era were to become so associated had been around for a few year but hadn’t yet grown (variously upwards & outwards) to the absurd proportions they would later assume and there was nothing unusual in taillights being housed in some construction integrated with the bodywork; once just “bolted-on” lens, taillights had become a design element.  What appeared on the early Corvettes are not really fins and are most analogous with the streamlined nacelles which appeared on contemporary aircraft as enclosures for jet engines; that aspect of aviation architecture would for years be a popular motif for the taillight stylists (by then a highly valued member of the team).  Despite that, the accepted term describing the sculptural extensions is “taillight pod”.  Interestingly, in some of the internal corporate memos the term “nacelle” was used but “pod” became the accepted standard.

1954 Corvette taillight (left) in pod with finlets.

The pair of small blades adorning the upper surface (although sometimes referred to as “finettes”) were in the documents of the GM Design Studio called “taillight bezels” or “ornamental finlets” and, modest as they were, the C1 Corvette probably was the first production car with “four fins”, those with them tending to fit them in pairs although, as a piece of biomimicry of aquatic species, some of the memorable inter-war and early post-war Tatras from Czechoslovakia had a single "central fin" running downwards from the rear of the roof.  The Tatra's fin (the concept familiar from LSR (Land Speed Record) machines) was there to enhance straight line stability and it was needed because of the car's configuration (advanced aerodynamics, a rear-mounted V8 engine and swing axles).  The fin did what it said on the tin but did little to alter the handling characteristics which, by virtue of the mechanical layout, could in unskilled hands be challenging.  The Corvette's behavior was more predictable but that didn't apply to the stylists (they weren't yet "designers") at GM and Chrysler who embarked on a process of “finflation” from which, mercifully, Chevrolet's sports car was spared.  Those on the early Corvettes were at least in a similar aspect ratio to those which appeared on actual jet engine nacelles where they were used to direct airflow in the desired direction and there would have been a slight aerodynamic effect (for better or worse) but the finlets were essentially decorative as GM’s memos indicated and similar additions even appeared on some dagmars (such as the 1954 Buicks).  The Corvette’s designers clearly though the moment had passed for when the restyled 1956 range was released, the pods had been banished, never to return.

1959 Pontiac Bonneville Convertible (left) and 1959 Pontiac Catalina Convertible (right).  Pontiac used the elongation of the elliptical taillights as a marker of a model's place in the division's hierarchy.

On the Corvette, the “taillight pod” and “ornamental finlets” combo didn’t make it into the 1956 range but the idea clearly became lodged somewhere in the GM collective memory because, on a grander scale, both were reprised on the 1959 Pontiacs; longer, higher and wider than the 1953 original, the look might have attracted more publicity had GM’s take on fins that year not been dominated by the Cadillac with the “twin bullet taillights” and the Chevrolet’s “bat wings”.  Compared with those extravagances, what Pontiac did was almost subtle and anyway overshadowed by two of the division’s more enduring debuts, the “split grill” and “year of the wide-track” campaign, the former coming and going, the latter lasting for more than a decade.  In a harbinger of what was to come (and ultimately doom Pontiac), all five GM divisions built their cars using the single platform of the GM B-Body and it was remarkable the stylists were able to achieve noticeably different appearances despite sharing the same structural core.  Whether the 1959 Pontiac's four finlets made them a more functional Peilstege than the two on the 1959 Heckflosse seems dubious although at 213.7 inches in length (5,428 mm) compared with the W111's 192 (4,875), drivers of Pontiacs would have needed them more.  Even a 1959 Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud II was only 213 inches (5,410) long and its bustleback had no fins whatever but many were chauffeur-driven so presumably “the help” were anyway good at parking. 

The Heckflosse as rally and race car

Mercedes-Benz 220 SE, Monte Carlo Rally, 1960.

To those accustomed to how things are done in the modern WRC (World Rally Championship) or have memories of the marvellous Group B cars of the 1980s (a category which enthralled everybody except the clipboard crew at the FIA (Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (the International Automobile Federation)) which, being international sport’s dopiest regulatory body, of course outlawed the things) it will seem improbable the Heckflosse would have been a successful rally car but the record was illustrious.  It’s best remembered for the 220 SE which won the 1960 Monte Carlo Rally but there were many other successes including the 1961 Algiers-Cape Town Central Africa Rally, an arduous event of some 13,500 kilometres (8400 miles) conducted over several weeks on a route from Cape Town to Algiers (a 190 D (a diesel-engined W121 “pontoon” rather than a Heckflosse) had won in 1959 which proved it was a rally which didn’t rely solely on speed).  First run in 1951 and based on an event staged in 1930, in 1956 a Fiat 1100 and a Ford Ranch Wagon V8 (two vehicles most unalike) had tied for first place, the latter driven by Elon Musk's (b 1971) maternal grandfather, chiropractor Joshua Norman Haldeman (1902–1974), who was an interesting character.

Mercedes-Benz factory rally team (part of the competition department, scaled down since the withdrawal from top-flight Formula One and sports car racing after 1999),  Acropolis Rally, 1963.

The most prestigious African rally was the East African Safari and a Heckflosse 220 SE won in 1961, following victories by 219s the previous two years. The 219 (W105, 1956-1959) was a curious anomaly among the post-war Mercedes-Benz saloons in terms of both nomenclature and engineering.  Using a “mix & match” approach which had been part of the transportation business even before things became motorized, the 219 used the 2.2 litre six-cylinder engine familiar in the various 220s (W128 & W180) but mounted it on the shorter “pontoon” platform used by the 4-cylinder 180 & 190 (W120 & W121) variants, the sacrificed length all accounted for by the shorter rear-doors (and thus wheelbase).  It was one of the more elaborate “de-frilling” exercises seen around the world, the variations including a lower cost version of an existing model (Citroën ID vs DS, Cadillac Calais vs De Ville or Chevrolet Biscayne vs Bel Air & Impala) or an existing body with a smaller engine substituted (Humber Hawk vs Super Snipe).  The 219’s designation was unusual in that it was the only occasion the familiar three numerals featured something other than a “0” as the last digit and it’s notable also because the factory, in a blatant attempt to evade the taxes levied on cars with 2.2 litre engines, slightly reduced the displacement.  The FRG (Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Federal Republic of Germany; the old West Germany) 1949-1990) government must have decided this was “un-German” trickery (dieselgate was decades away) because eventually they informed Daimler-Benz the 219 would be taxed as a 2.2 litre vehicle,  This brought production to an end because the effect of the tax increase would have negated the advantage the 219 had enjoyed.

The winning Mercedes-Benz 300 SE, Spa-Francorchamps 24 Hour, 1964.  Note the absence of the chrome trim which usually adorned the W112, the same weight-saving measure not always applied to the rally cars.

Although not obviously a machine built for the circuits, the Heckflosse did win enjoy success on the track, a 220 SE in 1961 winning the second Armstrong 500 in Australia, the event which became the annual Bathurst 1000.  It was even less obviously a rally car but the 220 SE enjoyed a remarkable record in the Poland Rally, winning four successive titles between 1960-1964 and the car also won the 1962 Liège-Sofia-Liège, the factory taking the title in the same event in 1963 with the new 230 SL (the W113 “Pagoda”, 1963-1971).  The Heckflosse also won the Acropolis Rally in two successive years, a 220 SE taking the chequered flag in 1962 and a 300 SE (W112) the following year.  The 300 SE was very much a luxury model which used the then still novel engineering of air suspension which provided a smooth ride but added to weight and complexity, neither quality sought by teams using cars in competition although the system did have the advantage of permitting ground clearance easily to be adjusted; to compensate for the added mass, the 300 SE used a variant of the 3.0 litre straight-6 from the 300 SL (W198; 1954-1963) Gullwing and roadster, a powerful, robust unit.  However, by 1963 it was obvious the days of the big sedans being effective rally cars was drawing to a close; the greater power of the 300 SE had permitted the Heckflosse quite an Indian summer but the immediate future clearly belonged to lighter, more nimble machines such as the Alfa Romeo Giulia, Mini Cooper, Saab 96 and Volvo 122.

Ewy Rosqvist with 220 SE Heckflosse.

However, whether on the circuits or the rally course, there was in the early 1960s nothing unusual about men winning trophies but something of note happened on November 4, 1962 when two Swedish women (driver Ewy Rosqvist (1929–2024) & co-driver Ursula Wirth (1934–2019)), in a 220 SE Fintail (Heckflosse) won the VI Gran Premio Internacional Standard Supermovil YPF (Sixth Touring Car Grand Prix of Argentina), conducted over five days and 2,874 miles (4,625 km) on some of the country’s gruelling, mountainous roads.  The women not only won but dominated the event; for the first time, a single vehicle won all six stages and they set a new race record.  To rub it in, all other competitors were men.  Ewy Rosqvist’s only complaint about the 220 SE was that when driving in the mountains, she’d have preferred one with power steering.  According to company lore, the rough road and hot weather testing of the competition department's Heckflosse's was conducted in the Australian outback (a good place to find both qualities) and the factory sent with the cars as test drivers the Ott brothers (dubbed by the locals “Crash Ott” and “Red Ott”); the report from the two burly Bavarians assured head office power assistance was “not needed” because the steering was  “acceptably light”.  

220 SE Heckflosse with spotter plane above.

Working as a veterinary assistant travelling between remote farms, Ewy Rosqvist was brought up on a diet of twisty, often icy roads of dubious quality and it was on those she learned the finer points of rally-style driving, travelling sometimes up to 200 km (125 miles) in a day.  With animals to care for, speed was required (in her bag was often some “time-critical” bull semen) and she took to keeping a log-book in which she recorded how long it took to go from one farm to the next; these entries she regarded as her “lap times”.  Later, she would recall the “unpaved roads, gravel paths and farm roads” with some gratitude because they honed techniques which proved good enough for her to win several European rally championships; she called her memoir Fahrt durch die Hölle (Driving through Hell (1963)).

Argentine Turismo Standard Grand Prix, 1962.

Victory celebrations: Ewy Rosqvist (left) with Ursula Wirth (right).  Between them (in sunglasses) stands Mercedes-Benz team manager Karl Kling (1910–2003) who was a factory driver in 1954-1955, driving both the W196R F1 cars and W196S (300 SLR) sports cars.

Although Daimler-Benz was not unaware of the publicity which would be generated by having a women driving for their competition department, when in 1962 the factory offered her a seat in the Mercedes-Benz works team, genuinely the appointment was on merit and with what was achieved in South America, she justified her place.  The team had appeared in Argentina with a four-car entry (two 220 SEs (W111) and two 300 SEs (W112)), the operation run with the sort of thoroughness which had characterized their Grand Prix campaigns in the 1930s & 1950s and, given the conditions encountered, it was just as well: of the 286 vehicles which started only 43 would finish.  Immediately the women made an impression by winning the first stage and they repeated the feat on the subsequent five, eventually finishing three hours ahead of the second-placed Volvo and setting a new record average speed of 126.87 km/h (78.84 mph).  Undeniably, the women were the most glamorous and photogenic in the field and they captured the country’s imagination, German language newspaper Freie Presse (published in Buenos Aires) reporting: “It was not the Cuban missile crisis [16-28 October 1962], but rather the two blondes from Scandinavia who dominated the headlines in the country’s daily newspapers.”